What If
by ConflictedCalypso
Summary: Entry for Quinntana Week. A series of beginnings - of their friendship, something more, and eventual relationship. Canon throughout season 4, with some minor changes - namely that the Valentine's Day episode never happened.


The first time she meets Santana, she's fifteen, and it's her first day at her new high school, having transferred from her last mid-way through the year, after the winter break. She's not the same girl she used to be – her face is different, and so is she. She wears her clothes, clothes that wouldn't have had a chance in hell of fitting just six months ago, like armour, keeps her head held high as she strides through the halls of McKinley High for the very first time.

She doesn't know anyone here, and it's almost a relief, to not have to worry about who might be hiding around the next corner, ready to spit their acerbic words in her face – no, instead _she's _prepared to be the one firing the insults, anything to be on top here, to not feel the way she had at her last school.

She draws attention immediately, because she's the new girl, revels in it, as people turn to stare. She paints a self-satisfied smirk on her face, acting as if she couldn't care less, though feeling so many eyes on her, _appreciating _her, rather than searching for something to criticize, is exhilarating.

She's never felt anything like it, and she's still on cloud nine when she finds her first class of the day, settles into a seat in the centre of the back row, and scans the room, taking in her classmates. There aren't many people there – she's early, wanting to grab the best seat in the house, but she observes those there already carefully.

There's a dark-haired girl, in the front row, writing furiously in the notebook open on her desk in-front of her – Quinn dismisses her immediately, with a cruel callousness that she knows she must adopt if she is to be what she wants to be here, because this girl is not the type she needs by her side. Perhaps in another life, at her old school, they would have been friends, but not now.

Two boys enter the room, one with short dark hair, the other with a mohawk that looks ridiculous. Both are good looking, both are wearing football jerseys, proudly, as they laugh at a joke, hi-fiving a few of their friends on the way to the back of the room, towards Quinn.

She knows that _these _are the people that she should be trying to integrate with, so she puts on a smile as they glance her way, noticing her for the first time, and watches them do a double-take. Mohawk-guy slides into the desk next to her with a grin, and his friend moves to sit beside him.

"Hey, new girl," Mohawk says, slinging an arm over the back of his chair as he turns to face her. "You got a name?"

"Quinn," she replies, still fixing a smile on her face, rest of the room ignored, for now, as she focuses on trying to worm her way into their social circle.

"I'm Puck, and this here is Finn," he nods towards the guy on his other side, who smiles sweetly, apparently not quite as confident as his friend, and Quinn warms to him immediately.

"And you're in my seat, Blondie." The voice comes from in-front of Quinn, and she turns to see a girl stood before her, hands on her hips, and wow, is she gorgeous. She's in a cheerleader's uniform, with a sinfully high skirt, her dark hair pulled away from her face and back into a high ponytail.

"I didn't realise they were assigned," Quinn replies smartly, meeting the gaze of the other girl and staring back defiantly – her eyes are such a dark shade of brown that the blonde wonders whether it'd be possible to drown in them.

"They're not. But that one's _mine_." It's practically a growl, and Quinn glances to her side, to Puck, and realisation dawns and she smirks, because _now _it becomes obvious – she's staking her claim on this boy, warning Quinn away, but she knows how to play this game. And she's not interested in him, regardless.

"Should've gotten here earlier then, shouldn't you?" She watches a muscle in the girl's cheek twitch, holds her gaze, because she has to prove herself in this moment. _This_ is someone that she needs by her side, rather than as an enemy, because she has a feeling that the brunette would be a formidable one.

"Santana," the voice comes from over the brunette's shoulder, and Quinn glances to see another cheerleader, this one blonde, appear at the brunette's side. "Just sit in my seat, and I'll move over one."

Santana mutters something that Quinn doesn't quite catch, but she's sure it isn't complementary as the brunette slides into the seat on Quinn's right, dragging the chair back as noisily as possible, and Quinn just rolls her eyes.

"I'm Brittany," the blonde announces, blue eyes sparkling with warmth as she smiles, and Quinn thinks that she'd rather have this girl sat next to her than Santana.

"Quinn," she smiles back, and Brittany nods before moving to her new seat.

"What kind of name is 'Quinn'?" Santana mutters with scorn, and when the blonde turns to face her she finds the brunette watching her with carefully guarded eyes.

"What kind of name is 'Santana'?" She counters, liking the way it flows off her tongue, and Santana glares at her for a second before her face transforms into a wicked smirk as she leans back on her chair.

"You know what, Q?" Quinn raises an eyebrow at the nickname, but she knows that nothing can ever be worse than her last – chants of Lucy Caboosey still ring in her ears, sometimes – and looks back at Santana with a neutral expression, expecting that what the brunette says next will be a make or break moment. "I think I'm gonna like you."

x-x-x

The first time they kiss – properly kiss, not one of those barely-there pecks on the lips that happen during the like of games like spin the bottle at high school parties – it's when Quinn is staying in New York during the summer after she finishes her first year at Yale.

Kurt and Blaine were off travelling, and Santana and Rachel had extended the invitation of moving in for a couple of months, probably so they had someone else there lest they try to murder one another. She accepted immediately, because otherwise she'd just be staying at Yale for the summer, alone, trying to find a shitty job to occupy some of her time, or back in Lima, counting down the minutes until she could leave again.

She and Santana have never had an easy friendship, but she likes to think that spending some time apart, in different states, for a year has helped them become closer. And Rachel, particularly over the last few months, since Finn had passed away, has become one of her best friends.

It's when Rachel's out with her fellow cast-mates of _Funny Girl_ that it happens, though. They're sat in the living room of the New York loft that had been Quinn's temporary home for the last two weeks, curled up on the couch with a bottle of wine.

Quinn has always thought that Santana was attractive, ever since that first day – how could she _not_? – but she thinks that the brunette looks best like this, dressed in baggy sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt, face make-up free and hair damp from the shower.

The blonde has to struggle to keep her gaze from roaming over Santana's body, inebriated as she is by the wine (she's had three glasses, already). Things have been… odd, between them, lately. Flirtatious, even, and Quinn isn't really sure where the shift has come from, but she doesn't really mind, either.

It's taken her a long time to become comfortable with who she is, and she thinks that a part of that person is probably attracted to women, and Santana is one of the most beautiful ones that she knows.

The brunette catches Quinn watching her, raises an eyebrow and smirks – she looks so predatory, leaning back against the arm of the couch, as she suddenly shifts so that she's just an inch or so away from the blonde, and Quinn wonders what the hell Santana is doing.

"See something you like, Q?" She teases, but there's an edge to her voice that lets Quinn know that she's interested in the answer. And two can play at this game – she's had plenty of practice perfecting her flirting, during high school, when she'd drawn first Finn, then Puck, then Sam into her arms.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" She catches Santana's eye, feels her gaze practically _smoulder_, and God, the way Santana is looking at her… it's almost like she's trying to hold herself back from lunging the short distance between them, and Quinn suddenly _wants _her to, with a desperation that she didn't realise she could feel.

It should scare her, to want to kiss her best friend, to want to rip off her clothes and claim every inch of her body with her lips, but it doesn't. It just brings a heat to her stomach, an ache between her legs, because she'd really _really_ like to see Santana on her back, underneath her body, and it wasn't like it had to _mean _anything. They were young, she was curious, and she was sure Santana wasn't going to turn her down – Quinn knew she looked good, had caught Santana staring at her longingly on more than one occasion, even way back before she'd admitted to herself, and everyone else, that she was gay.

"I would, actually," Santana murmurs in reply, voice low, dangerous, and Quinn swallows, hard, because maybe they've gone too far. She feels the weight of the wine glass in her hand, glances down to see that it's still a quarter-full, and brings it to her lips, just to allow her a few moments to _think_.

It's cheap wine that tastes pretty fucking awful, but by this point she's had too much to really care, and downs the remainder in her glass in one easy gulp, before turning to shove the glass on the coffee table.

When she turns back, Santana is suddenly right _there_, in-front of her, so close that she's surrounded by the faint scent of the brunette's shampoo, and her breath catches in her throat. Their eyes meet, and Santana's are dark, darker than Quinn ever remembers seeing them before, and they're filled with a heat that makes her shiver.

And then there are warm, strong, hands sliding over her hips, pulling her closer until she's straddling Santana's waist. Her hands rest on the back of the couch, and her chest is heaving even though nothing's _happened _yet, but she feels the anticipation, the anticipation that's been building for so _long_, and it makes her quiver under the gentle stroking of Santana's thumbs over the sharp bone of her hips.

She's thought about what this would be like before. The first time had been when she'd first found out about Santana and Brittany – she'd lain in bed, later that same night, closed her eyes and wondered what it would be like, to be in Brittany's place. When she'd found her hand sliding down her stomach and under the material of her shorts without even thinking, to alleviate the sudden ache she'd felt at the apex of her thighs, she'd snatched it away, rolled over, and forced the thoughts away.

That didn't meant that it was the last time it happened, though. Once she'd walked in on the two of them going at it, Brittany's head working in-between Santana's legs, and the _sounds _she'd heard Santana making before she'd realised what she was doing and made a hasty escape… they'd haunted her for weeks, as had the look on the brunette's face.

And now… now Santana's underneath her, trapped in place by the blonde's legs around her waist, Quinn's hands on either side of her head. She's biting her lip, teeth pressing so hard that the skin underneath flashes white, and Quinn can feel herself still trembling beneath Santana's barely there touch, and she doesn't think she's ever wanted something as much as she wants Santana in this moment.

But she's scared to move, because she doesn't want things to change. She doesn't want to ruin the friendship that they've managed to strike up, now so much better than it had been in high school. But it's been charged with sexual tension for weeks now, ever since Quinn had offhandedly mentioned that she'd fooled around with a girl at Yale at a party when she'd had too much to drink, and enjoyed it.

She wonders what it was about that moment that had caused such a shift in their dynamic. Was it that Santana had never before considered Quinn in that way, because she thought she hadn't a chance before? Or was it that now that she knew Quinn wasn't opposed to the idea, she really wanted to see what she was like in bed?

Quinn wasn't sure it really mattered why, though, as Santana's fingers dig into her hip, nails pressing against her skin in a possessive move, and she groans, low in her throat, because _God_ it feels amazing.

She hears Santana's breath catch at the noise, opens her eyes from where they've fluttered closed, and almost stops breathing because the way Santana is looking at her… like she means _everything_ – she just doesn't know how to deal with it.

She wonders if this would be happening if they hadn't opened that bottle of wine, but quickly pushes the doubt away – they've been building towards this moment for too long, it was an inevitability. They just might have sped things up a bit, taking away the inhibitions that had kept them cautious with one another so far.

It's hard to remember why they've waited for so long, though, as she lowers her head, mouth pressing against Santana's with a hesitancy that she hadn't meant to show. It's barely a kiss – just their lips ghosting over one another – but it's enough to set Quinn's every nerve aflame, her hands twisting into Santana's dark locks and just holding her place for a moment, absorbing just what, exactly, is happening.

They breathe the same air, eyes closed, for several heavy moments before it becomes too much, before Santana's touch starts to burn the skin of her waist, until she just _needs_ to kiss her fully, properly, to taste her, and this time Santana meets her halfway.

Their first kiss was chaste, gentle, but the next is exactly the opposite, exactly what Quinn would have expected of Santana – all heat and passion and strength. When her tongue dips into Quinn's mouth for the first time the blonde moans, hands tightening into Santana's hair, which in turn makes the brunette pull Quinn tighter against her body, and she's surprised Santana can't feel the heat of her, even through her jeans, pressed against Santana's stomach.

They kiss for a long time, taking the time to explore, because who knows if they'll get this chance again? If they'll even be able to look one another in the eye tomorrow? Quinn is determined to take her time, because if this is the only chance, the only night that she ever gets to spend with Santana Lopez then she's damn well sure going to make it worth it.

Soon kissing just isn't _enough_, though, and her hands ghost down the brunette's sides, before she reaches the hem of her shirt and drags it upwards before she starts to second-guess herself, because okay, she's not a virgin, but she's had sex exactly once with Puck on _that_ night, and while she's not inexperienced in other areas, she knows that Santana has more to work with than she does. It makes her feel nervous, a little inferior, even, but instead of letting it show she lifts the shirt over Santana's head and throws it over the back of the couch before crushing their mouths together again.

It's electrifying, to feel bare skin beneath her fingertips as she timidly runs them from Santana's stomach and up to the edge of her bra. She pauses there, uncertain once again, but then a pair of hands are over the back of hers, curling so that she's cupping Santana's breasts and it's so _hot_ that Santana's so in control of this that she groans low in the back of her throat, and again when Santana draws back, away from Quinn's mouth, nipping at her bottom lip in the process.

"I'm not going to break, Q," she murmurs, her breath ghosting against the blonde's ear, before her lips move down the side of Quinn's neck. "And if you think I don't want this as much as you, then you're an idiot."

The words are breathed against the juncture where her neck and shoulder meet, and when teeth close around the skin her hips buck forwards, and a hissed _fuck_ leaves her lips, and she can practically feel Santana smirking against her skin as her hands release Quinn's to move to divest the blonde of her shirt, too.

Determined not to be outdone, as Santana's mouth continues to work at the same spot – it's always made her weak at the knees, but somehow Santana manages to make it feel a thousand times more intense – she slips one hand under the cup of the brunette's bra, finds the hardened bud underneath her palm and lets just the tip of her thumb graze over it, both feels and hears Santana's moan against her skin.

It's good, to know that she doesn't suck at this – she may have had that drunken night at Yale, but it had barely led to anything more than kissing before they'd both passed out, and to know that she's doing something _right_ just spurs her on even more.

She's too distracted, by the sounds Santana makes when she rolls her nipple between her fingers harder than before, and she doesn't notice until it actually _happens_ that Santana's hands are at the clasp of her bra, opening it with ease and then pulling at it impatiently until it's on the floor.

Quinn's hand drops from Santana's chest, move automatically to cover herself, because she's never felt quite this vulnerable, but the brunette just shakes her head vehemently, reaching for the blonde's arm and pulling it away.

She doesn't placate her with words like 'you're beautiful', because that's just not how they work. Instead, she _shows_ her, her head dipping as she leans to take one of the blonde's nipples into her mouth.

"Oh, _God_," Quinn breathes, once hand scrabbling for purchase on the back of the couch as Santana's tongue swirls, and then her teeth graze lightly, because she just needs something to hold on to, to ground herself. Her other hand twists once more in Santana's hair, holding her close.

She can't help thinking, as Santana pays the same attention to her other breast, what it would be like to have that mouth working somewhere _else_, and even just the thought of it makes her moan, and suddenly her jeans are far too restricting, and she's pretty sure her underwear is already ruined from what Santana's doing to her – she doesn't want to wreck her pants, too.

She pulls Santana away from her chest with a gentle tug to her hair, soothes away the questioning expression with a brief kiss, before she makes a move to stand, pulling the brunette up after her. Her knees ache from being in the same position for so long, and she winces as she makes to drag Santana toward her bedroom – Kurt's bedroom, technically, but Santana had stolen it while he was away, leaving Quinn with the brunette's old room, which was really just a mattress on the floor with some curtains around it for privacy.

Santana isn't content with keeping her hands off of Quinn for longer than two seconds, though, and she spins the blonde around to kiss her again, hands moving to grab at her ass roughly, yanking her closer, and Quinn gasps as Santana's thigh slips between her legs, hips automatically grinding down, because she just needed _some _kind of friction or she might actually explode.

Santana's hands find purchase on her hips as she's pressed against a wall – distantly, she hears things fall to the ground, wonders what they've managed to walk into and probably break, but she's too lost in Santana to really care – with the blonde braced against the wall, Santana's free to press her thigh upwards, rocking into Quinn's hips, and the blonde can only hold Santana closer, her nails sure to leave marks on the brunette's back.

It just feels so _good_, and she had no idea that it would be like this – if she had there was no way she would've been able to wait for so long. Already, she can feel herself growing close, wonders if she's going to come like this, against Santana's thigh, still half-dressed, pressed back against the wall in the main room of the loft, when Santana pulls back, resting her forehead against Quinn's, breaths coming in quick, sharp pants.

"You're going to be the death of me, Quinn Fabray," she whispers, and Quinn can only shake her head, because surely that was backwards. When she opens her eyes, Santana is looking at her like she's never seen her before, and she wonders if she looks as hot as the brunette does, flushed with her mussed hair and bruised lips; she was wrong, earlier, because like _this_ – this is when Santana looks her best.

She steps back, then, takes Quinn's hand, and leads her forward, into her room, and suddenly things start to feel a lot more intimate than they had before. The gravity of what they were about to finally hit her, as she watches Santana shove her sweatpants down her hips, unclasp her bra and then step backwards so that she was sitting, perched on the edge of the bed, eyes assessing Quinn's face carefully.

Quinn knows what she's doing – she's letting her make the first move, like she had before they'd kissed, because out of the two of them, she's the more likely to regret this in the morning. But she doesn't think that she'll ever be able to live with herself if she lets this moment slip through her fingers, so she pushes all of her doubts and her insecurities away, and reaches for the button of her jeans, peeling them down her legs and tossing them to the side, revelling in the feeling of freedom when she's finally rid of them.

Santana's eyes leave her face to rake across the length of her body, and there's such desire on her face that it makes Quinn shudder, and then she's climbing onto the bed, pulling Santana ontop of her, losing herself in the feeling of skin against skin, of what it feels like to be so intimately pressed together with another woman.

She runs her hands through Santana's hair again as their mouths re-connect, as they rock into one another in a rhythm that starts off slow but quickly builds. When she feels one of Santana's hands drag across her skin, between their bodies, Quinn's breathing nearly stops, but she's just teasing – she scrapes her blunt nails across the taut skin of Quinn's stomach, feels her shudder beneath the touch, before she moves to the outside of the blonde's thighs, tracing the skin with feather-light touches.

It's enough to drive Quinn insane, and she tears her mouth away from Santana's, her head falling back against the pillow as she claws at the skin of the brunette's lower back, pulling her closer. Santana's lips trail down the outside of her neck, and then her hand is cupping Quinn's sex through her underwear and _God_ she's going to die before Santana even touches her properly.

"Santana," she gasps out as her fingers press down, drawing absent circles around her clit through the damp material and her hips buck upwards. "I-I need…" she trails off, because to be honest, she doesn't know _what _she needs, aside from to alleviate the building pressure she can feel from the gentle touch of Santana's hand but she's not _good _at this, she doesn't know how to say what she wants but then Santana's slipping her fingers inside the flimsy lace of her panties and okay, yeah, she's _definitely _going to pass out.

She knows that there'll be time, later, to explore one another's bodies properly, to tease one another until they can barely stand it – but now's not that time, and Santana's touch is deliberate as she slides her fingers through wet heat. She finds the blonde's clit easily, flicks her thumb across it a few times until Quinn can barely even comprehend the noises she's making, and then Santana moves lower, circling around her entrance teasingly, until Quinn's hips press upwards, seeking _more_ than what she's getting.

Santana pulls away from the skin of her neck – where she's undoubtedly left a mark, a stain on Quinn's skin to remind them both of what had happened on this night, for days to come – to watch the blonde's face as she slides one finger into her centre.

Quinn feels the weight of Santana's gaze on her, but can't keep her own eyes open – they slide shut as Santana begins to move her hand, pulling out completely before pressing back in, using the added pressure of her thigh against the back of her wrist, soon adding another finger.

Quinn's already close, has been pretty much since they first kissed. Her hands return to Santana's hair as the brunette dips down to take one of the blonde's nipples into her mouth once more, her tongue grazing the tip as her thumb flicks against her clit in time with the thrust of her fingers, and it's not much longer before Quinn comes undone – her back arches of the bed, and she holds Santana close against her chest as she rides out the waves the brunette coaxes from her, with her hand still moving between her thighs.

It's only when she stops shaking, her back returning back to bed, that Santana pulls away. Quinn feels her roll to the side, but doesn't open her eyes – she doesn't know if she _can _– as she tries in vain to catch her breath. She can hear the thundering of her heart in her ears, finally opens her eyes to see Santana watching her with dark eyes, and she feels a smile tug at her lips because _wow_.

She doesn't say anything as she shifts, throwing a leg over Santana's waist, using the momentum to roll them over so that she's straddling the brunette's waist. She doesn't think she needs to – they can talk about it, if they want to, if they're _brave _enough to, in the morning.

But for now?

For now she has a very naked, very _hot _Santana Lopez settled beneath her hips, her eyes dark with desire, and her skin flushed with want, and there was no way in hell that she was going to let this night go by without knowing what it felt like to feel Santana come undone beneath her touch.

x-x-x

Their relationship begins several weeks later. They'd been sleeping together ever since that first night – Quinn has lost count of how many times she's snuck into Santana's bedroom once Rachel had gone to bed, only to slink back out in the early hours of the morning, skin covered in a fine sheen of sweat, sated.

They steal moments whenever they can, be it when Rachel's out at rehearsals (which occurs with increasing regularity as her opening night looms), or when they're out in New York, be it a hasty kiss (and occasionally something more), in a bathroom, or teasing touches across skin when they're pressed together on the dancefloor of a bar.

They can barely keep their hands off of one another, and it's like nothing that Quinn has ever felt before. She still hasn't quite processed that it's _Santana _making her feel like this, but she feels like she's getting there.

It's just so _easy_, easier than she'd have ever thought. Sure, they still fight, because they always will, that's just how they _are_ – just last night they'd had a blazing row, over something that Quinn can't even remember now, that had Rachel fleeing from the loft and ending up in Santana fucking her against the back of the couch.

They were sat on the couch, currently, Quinn sandwiched in-between Santana and Rachel, watching some shitty reality TV show and just enjoying spending some time together, keeping away from the blazing summer heat of the city outside.

It's nice, to be spending time with her friends. She's just _enjoying _this summer more than any other she's ever had in her life, because she's finally starting to feel like _herself_, and she's finally _doing _something just for herself, and it's… She's just _happy_.

Rachel rises to her feet in the ad break, disappearing to the kitchen to make some popcorn, and that's when Santana turns towards her, looking at her with an expression that Quinn can't quite place.

"What?" She asks, feeling suddenly self-conscious. She resists the urge to ask if she's got something on her face, because she _knows_ she doesn't, and Santana just laughs at the look on her face, but doesn't say anything. So Quinn turns away, calling out to Rachel to bring her a drink back with her.

"Hey, Q," Santana finally says, and the blonde turns back to face her, one eyebrow raised in expectation. "Wanna be my girlfriend?"

"I – _what_?" Quinn gapes, because of all the things that she'd ever expected Santana to say, this was probably the last on her list. Sure, they've been fooling around, but she didn't necessarily want more (okay, that was a lie, she _totally _wanted more), but she'd never thought that Santana would want the same. She wasn't even entirely sure that the brunette was over Brittany, was definitely not sure that they'd work as anything more than friends that just had sex on occasion (okay, pretty fucking regularly, but who was counting?)

"It's just a question, Q, not the end of the world," Santana says, in a careful way that suggests she's choosing each word cautiously. "If you don't want to it's okay."

"No," she replies immediately, because she doesn't want Santana getting the wrong idea, it's just that it's been sprung on her so quickly that it's sent her into a spin. "I just – I wasn't expecting it."

"Okay. Think about it for a bit, then." Only Santana could react so coolly, and it was more than a little infuriating, but Quinn can't really say much else because Rachel returns to the couch, then, bowl of popcorn in one hand and two bottles of water in the other – she passes one to Quinn before settling back down, shooting the blonde a curious look, presumably at the expression on Quinn's face, but she just shakes her head and turns back to the TV, trying to focus on the show but failing miserably.

If she was being honest with herself, then yeah, Santana was kind of everything that she wanted – a fact that had just been driven home by her short time in New York, something that, deep down, she'd probably always known. But she'd never thought she had a chance, always though that, in the end, she and Brittany would be together forever.

Maybe they needed a conversation about that, she muses to herself, jumping when Santana's hand grazes across her thigh when she leant over the blonde to steal a handful of popcorn from Rachel. She glares at the side of the brunette's head when she sees her smirk, shoving at her shoulder so that she nearly tips onto the floor.

"Not cool, Q," the brunette pouts, popcorn spilling all over the place, but Quinn just laughs as the wounded expression on Santana's face. "Oh, you think this is funny?" She picks up a few kernels and tosses them towards the blonde's face, but she dodges them easily.

"Can we please _not_ start throwing food?" Rachel asks with clear disapproval, clambering to her feet again and disappearing back to the kitchen, presumably to find something to clean up the mess with. Santana takes Quinn's distraction as an opportunity to lean over and run her fingers lightly up the blonde's sides – she's always been ticklish there, and she shrieks, twisting away but just managing to end up on her back, trapped by Santana's hands at her sides.

She pauses, looking up at the brunette looming above her, with a stupid smile across her stupid face, and she knows, in that moment, that she's well and truly done for – somewhere, somehow, Quinn Fabray has managed to fall in love with her best friend, and even though the realisation should probably terrifying her, it sends a thrill through her body instead.

"Yes," she murmurs, the word barely loudly than a whisper, and Santana cocks her head to one side, as if she didn't quite hear her. "Yes, I'll be your girlfriend." The grin that blossoms Santana's face is enough to smooth away any lingering doubts about Brittany – sure, they'd been in love, but they'd broken up and things were different now, out here in the real world – and when the brunette leans down to press their lips together in a searing kiss, she winds her hands through her hair, holding her close.

They're interrupted by someone clearing their throat, and Santana hastily scrambles backwards so that she's kneeling, and Quinn sits up quickly, flushing, to see Rachel staring down at them, blank expression on her face, arms folded across her chest. The three of them stand there, for a moment of heavy silence, each searching for the right thing to say, and it's Rachel who's the first to break it.

"_Finally_."

"Uh, what?" Santana questions, frowning, but Rachel just rolls her eyes and turns away, bending to brush up the remaining popcorn kernels on the floor. "What do you mean finally?"

"Finally now I don't have to pretend that I don't know the two of you have been sneaking around together practically since Quinn got here, duh," she replies, and Quinn's mouth falls open, because though she hadn't really considered what reaction her friends would have, having never thought it would be anything she'd ever _need _to tell people about, casual indifference was surprising and how had she _known_?

"How did you…?" She trials off, asking the question after a few more moments of silence, when it became clear that Santana wasn't going to say anything else.

"Seriously?" Rachel asks, rising gracefully to her feet and resting her hands on her hips. "You realise we have no _walls_ here, right? I've heard things. You're not exactly the quietest of people, you know."

Quinn is mortified, her face flaming red, but Santana just breaks into laughter when she catches her eye, so hard that Quinn thinks she might actually start crying, and she's just so _embarrassed _and it's Santana's _fault_, so she grabs the pillow lying next to her and socks her in the shoulder, effectively cutting her off.

"Rude," is all she says in response, but Quinn feels a little better, and then Rachel smiles encouragingly at her and slides back into her seat, and Santana takes her hand, twisting their fingers together and yeah, she thinks that right now, in this moment, that her life is pretty damn perfect.


End file.
